CONGREGATIONAL STORY
For such a time as this Heather Williamson reports on how the congregation of Ballywillan has managed to raise £100,000 for orphans in Swaziland, despite the lockdowns.
I
t all started with one of our summer visitors to Ballywillan, who said to my husband, the minister, “Stephen, my nephew runs a programme that looks after orphans in Swaziland. They have a choir coming to Northern Ireland, would you like them to come to Ballywillan?” And so they came, the Khulula choir. They brought their African joyous expression of worship in song and dance and the congregation loved them. A few years later, they were back, and the same summer visitor was saying, “Stephen, you and Heather need to go and visit Swaziland.” He said this for five years before in February 2018 Stephen and I had the opportunity to visit with Challenge Ministries Swaziland (CMS). Set up and run by Kevin and Helen Ward (Kevin’s dad was originally from Lisburn) to look after street children who had been abandoned during the height of the AIDs epidemic in Southern Africa, CMS was by then looking after 400–500 orphans. Young men and women who had been abused, or addicted, were welcomed into residential centres. These young adults were introduced to Jesus Christ, encouraged to get to know him personally and then move forward with him as the priority in their lives, while also learning skills that would hopefully keep them off the streets in the future.
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Herald Autumn 2021
We spent a week visiting with them in the men’s centre, women’s centre and Potter’s Wheel Church, with its outreach into the community. CMS have established what they call ICBCs (In Community By Community), where a church plant is set up with a local pastor, a pre-school and, in a few areas, a health clinic. We had heard about their main
The year that followed has been truly amazing; a special partnership grew...turning our thoughts and prayers from ourselves to those most vulnerable…
children’s home, an entire town, previously a disused mining town, high in the hills close to the border with South Africa. About 400 children live here in small groups of six children to each house, with a live-in ‘auntie’ to look after them. In this town are three schools (nursery, primary and secondary), a bakery, a water bottling plant, a honey production project and a dairy farm, as well as a health clinic, church and a tourist lodge. It is difficult to get to by road, so therefore a perfect place for vulnerable and sometimes abused children to be looked after in safety and security. We had difficulty imagining this place but it really was a haven of peace and tranquility, and as for the scenery, it was so beautiful! We came home enthused by what we had seen, not only in what they were doing but in the Christ-like way it was done. Many in the congregation were challenged and moved by what we were able to share with them. Early in 2019 another couple from the congregation also travelled to Swaziland, returning as enthusiastic supporters of CMS. Then in October 2019 a ‘motley crew’ of 13 members of Ballywillan spent a couple of weeks working with CMS in a variety of projects, taking in first-hand their ethos of Christian service and evangelism. Little did we know what was to lie ahead
